Stickers to allow Tacoma Narrows drivers to pay toll electronically

Washington's highway system entered a new age Wednesday by issuing its first-ever electronic tolling devices, for use on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge later this year.

In the "Good to Go" program, drivers who stick a transponder on their windshields will be able to pay as they whiz down the road, instead of stopping at a toll booth.

Antennas mounted above the highway will read an electronic chip attached to the small sticker, and money will be deducted from the driver's pre-paid account — much like using a rechargeable debit card, coffee card or gift card.

Drivers without transponders will pull off to the right and pay at a toll booth just before entering the bridge eastbound to Tacoma. If someone passes through without paying, a camera will photograph the license plate, and the owner will be sent a notice to pay $40, plus three times the unpaid toll.

The exact toll has not been set. Finance plans for the bridge, expected to open this summer, assumed an initial $3 toll, with increases later. No separate toll will be charged for westbound traffic, which will use the existing bridge.

The same transponder technology will be tried on Highway 167 in the Green River Valley next year, for an experimental "high-occupancy toll" or HOT lane, where people driving alone will be able to pay to enter the high-occupancy lane. A future Highway 520 floating bridge would also use electronic devices to collect tolls.

"It's the wave of the future, as far as tolling in this state," said Janet Matkin, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Doug MacDonald, the state transportation secretary, has predicted that in a couple of decades, electronic tolling will be pervasive on Puget Sound-area highways.

Recent gas-tax increases and proposed regional taxes fail to cover the price of highway megaprojects, so politicians are considering tolls, even at the risk of a public backlash.

It took several years of debate to arrive at funding and design plans for the new $849 million Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge, next to the existing 1950 span.

Bridge tolls used to be common in Washington state, and toll roads are proliferating in many states.

No tolls have been collected here since 1990, when a 10-cent toll expired on the Maple Street Bridge in downtown Spokane. A 70-cent toll on Highway 520, collected on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, ended in 1979. A toll on the Hood Canal Bridge expired in 1985 at $4.

Even though Opening Day for the Narrows Bridge is a few months off, dozens of people lined up Wednesday in Gig Harbor to open their accounts, at a $30 minimum. Some paid $100.

"We like to be ahead of things," said Patrick O'Dell of Port Orchard. It's fair to make users pay, he said: "We can't seem to come up with enough money to fix our roads. They've been doing it back East for years."

The sales office resembles a small bank branch, with young women in teal polo shirts behind teller windows, a promotional video playing on a wall-mounted screen, and sign-up forms in the lobby. But most transactions will happen online.

By midafternoon, 2,654 transponders had been handed or mailed out. The goal is to have 50 percent to 60 percent of drivers equipped with a chip when the bridge opens.

About 90,000 vehicles a day use the existing bridge. By 2020, the state predicts an increase to 95,000 with both bridges, a figure that would be higher if not for tolls.

Drivers won't necessarily see faster travel times at first, because some lanes of the existing bridge will be closed while it is retrofitted. Starting next spring, traffic to Gig Harbor will occupy the old bridge, and Tacoma-bound traffic the new one.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com